Its been a busy month so far…with guiding and avalanche education. Here’s a quick update on our courses:
Kirk and I started off with an Avalanche Level 1 Refresher (ASAW) here at SMG Headquarters and did our field sessions out at Banner Summit. This is a 1.5 day course revisting concepts and skill sets learned in a Level 1 course. Kirk covered some of the core topics regarding snowpack, weather, terrain and we got to do a rescue scenario and tour out at Copper with great snow conditions.
The past 2 weekends (1/9-1/11 & 1/16-1/18 ) we (Kirk, Hatch and I) have been up at the hut teaching our popular Avalanche Level 1 courses. Every year these fill right up because of the easy access to all the avalanche terrain (classroom) right out the backdoor and all the hands on experience. People traveled from New York, Pennsylvania, California, Montana, Colorado, Oregon and various parts of Idaho to come hang out at the yurt and learn about avalanches and decision making. We made sure their trip was worth it and talked avalanche from sun up to sun down (and sometimes much before and after). The field sessions went well too ranging from rescue scenarios, digging snow pits and practicing stability tests, and the last day touring and managing terrain. Everyone left feeling like they had learned a ton, had a great yurt experience and got some good turns. Thanks for coming.
Ray Gadd, who is a Boise based photographer, did a blog post on the Jan 16-18 course he took. He has some awesome pictures…check out his post here.
Here’s a select few pictures from the past couple weekends, if you guys have any feel free to email them and I’ll post. (thanks Cara or sending some of yours) Click to enlarge:
-Clark